However, the US is the reigning champion, producing more than half of the 865 start-ups in the sharing economy, the term for technology companies that allow people to capitalise on their unused assets such as property, skills or time.

“The sharing economy has the potential to change everything about how we access goods and services”
Alex Stephany, JustPark CEO

Research from JustPark, the online service that connects people with unoccupied driveways with drivers looking for a parking space, found that London is home to 72 sharing economy start-ups, making it the third biggest creator city behind New York (89) and San Francisco (131).

Bolstered by the success of cab-hailing app Uber and home rentals site Airbnb – the two most valuable start-ups in the world – the most popular categories globally for sharing economy start-ups are transport, with 127 companies, and travel, with 111.

When broken down into smaller subsections, the most crowded sectors of the sharing economy allow people to help others with their chores, such as TaskRabbit (37), lend each other money, like Zopa (37), rent out their unused car, such as Zipcar (34), finance someone else’s business, such as Crowdcube (33) and rent out their spare room, à la Airbnb (31).

“In time, the sharing economy will grow to be pervasive in an even wider array of industries,” said Mr Stephany, highlighting “healthcare, education, insurance and even farming” as sectors that are primed for disruption by the new business models of the sharing economy.

JustPark, which raised £3.7m from almost 3,000 investors earlier this year in the UK’s largest ever equity crowdfunding round, included the 865 companies listed under “sharing economy”, “collaborative consumption” and “peer-to-peer” on the start-up tracking websites AngelList and Crunchbase.